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Canon: Marvel comics (616 universe)
Character Name: Tony Stark
Character Journal:
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definingfuturePlayer Name: Tea
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Character Details
Canon Point: Just prior to Dark Reign, when Norman Osborn takes over SHIELD.
Species: Human
Timeline of Important Events in Canon History:
Note: Recent comics have changed the history to reveal that Tony was adopted and that Howard Stark was an integral member of S.H.I.E.L.D. However, the canon point I've taken is far before this change, so I did not include that part. I've been sticking to the timeline prior to that change.
Personality:
Tony is driven first and foremost by the future. It's how he defines himself, being a self-proclaimed "futurist" and acting with that in mind. He's pushed by both the potential the future has for good and the fear he has of the negative consequences that can come when it isn't put in check. He's always trying to think forward, to make new things and build new opportunities for those around him while protecting them from threats and potential threats headed their way. He's a visionary, both inspired and plagued by what he can imagine.
My name is Tony Stark. It's a name you've probably already heard, seeing as my name has come to mean so many varied things over the course of my lifetime -- billionaire, playboy, inventor, industrialist, super hero, among others.
Like the future he sees, Tony is a man made up of contradictions. Raised by Howard and Maria Stark, Tony was brought up with an affluent lifestyle and groomed young in business and the cost of war. From Howard he learned to be an industrialist and excels at most things related to weapon design, making him a capable professional with a sharp wit and drive for success. Used to comfort, he often has expensive tastes and prefers convenience where he can get it. After all, why take the harder route if the easy one is just as efficient? This mindset leads him to habits common to the corporate culture he's used to. Because he is often dealing with so much disposable income and large amounts of resources, Tony tends to take a businesslike approach to issues that can appear callous or clinical to those around him. When something breaks down or doesn't work, he often believes it is better to just upgrade and replace it, assuming that the shortest distance between two points is probably the best answer to any problem. Of course, when the problems involve people and complications arise, his "simplest solution" is not always the best solution, or even if it is, it is best in a technical sense. He can also be indulgent. Although this is not always true to form, a good deal of Tony's life is built on a softer, privileged experience. He likes his creature comforts and has a history of being a free-spirited playboy in his younger adult years, further adding to his image as a superficial, if clever, elite.
Beneath the layer of a smooth-talking suit is still another mask, because the one thing Tony Stark can't be is simple. In addition to being the Faceman charming the public, Tony is his own enforcer. Iron Man is his tough guy act, who doesn't break a sweat when confronted with danger, who always has a quip and a punch to back it up, and who balances out the charisma with brawn. He's a hero and protector, defending what he feels is right and answering to no one else--somewhat an ideal of what Tony personally wants. Although he was raised by a rich family, Howard was, in Tony's words, "a hard man to live with." A pressured weapons manufacturer with a high competitive drive and a strict hand, Howard taught Tony from an early age that toughness was the way to success. Iron Man, in a way, is Tony's answer to that: the strength he wants to have to fulfill or escape the expectations of his past.
But, as their descriptions indicate, they are just roles. Being a corporate leader or a superhero are jobs with uniforms and personas he puts on to fill a need. They aren't entirely fake as each is still part of him, but much of the time the jobs he fills are just pieces of him just as any job only shows part of who a person is. The unique part about Tony is that although he puts on a variety of masks, at the heart of his actions, he is more himself than just a hero or a leader, whether good or bad. Despite the fronts he constantly puts on, Tony is at his core very emotional. He reacts to his feelings as often as he does logic and reason, balancing his pragmatic approach with a sensitive heart. He's pushed forward by what he wants, and what he wants more than anything is a good future, a positive outcome for everyone. Yes, he is a bit of a bleeding heart. He's repeatedly given criminals, including those who have tried to kill him, second chances and even hired them on to give them a new start. This may seem to contradict the image of the arrogant, self-absorbed executive, and in fact his emotional side does come in odds with his professional role fairly often. It's a delicate balancing act that does not always work in his favor. In the past, he's become self-destructive due to stress and tragedy, losing control to anger and alcoholism that still hangs over him. On the other hand, Tony's humanity is really where he shines. He leads with his heart, being sincere in a way that comes through even with the masks he wears. A good indication of this is how personal his relationships are to those around him. He isn't just a faceless corporate entity indifferent to the destruction of others. Most of the people who know him, heroes and villains alike, call him Tony over Iron Man, and that is telling of how they see beyond the roles. He's been Secretary of Defense for the United States government and Director of SHIELD, but he's Tony Stark, a normal man, above any of those titles.
Naturally, with all of those conflicting roles and feelings and responsibilities filling his life, Tony seeks out stability. And his stability, his primary lifeline, is the future. Tony is dedicated to creating a better world. He is an inventor, after all. He's fascinated by potential and always looking for ways to improve. This desire, and perhaps obsession, is reflected in the way he lives his life. He's a man who has made arguably more mistakes than anyone else, yet he continues to learn from them. Each loss he takes is followed by a change in his plans and style, each time with a promise to himself as well as others, "I'll never do that again." And that remains pretty true. Despite making many mistakes, he doesn't tend to repeat the same errors twice, again, perhaps because he's too hyper-sensitive and obsessive about improvement. He's gone from being a frivolous youth with a cynical but careless attitude toward his life to a man who carries a lot of self-doubt and spends a good deal of time seriously reflecting on all of his choices.
Sometimes it seems like everyone knows exactly what I should do -- and it's whatever's in their best interests... Usually, I can just shrug it off. Figure out what I think is best and do that.
But it seems like I've spent my entire adult life just reacting to events, reeling from crisis to crisis -- either charging blindly into things or running away, distracting myself with women, with work, with alcohol.
He takes each lesson he learns as a step toward the future he wants to see. This not only shows in how he improves his own life, but how he treats others. He's extremely loyal to his friends, giving to the point of self-sacrifice, and still pragmatic. He knows when to cut his losses, and although his strategic plays run more toward the reckless maverick style, they almost always succeed. He's generous and protective, which comes from having too much material wealth and not enough emotional support to give it meaning. If he has something within his power to give, he'll give it, hoping that expresses how he feels toward those around him. He's also one of the more open-minded heroes when it comes to gray lines and forgiveness. Tony understands that there are different points of view and the hard truth that all humans are flawed. As an alcoholic and the weapons designer who's been branded with every slur people can come up with, Tony doesn’t usually judge others with a black-and-white outlook. He stands up to enemies and has no problem telling someone when he thinks they are wrong, but he doesn't equate actions with someone's worth. What you do does not necessarily make you evil, at least in his perspective. He tries to reason with people and talk them down from violence rather than the "shoot first, negotiate afterwards" approach. He's often analyzing others' reactions just as much as he does his own, trying to understand their situations and feelings.
That doesn't mean he's perfected himself, either. He has a notably sharp wit -- he's an engineering genius with the ability to adapt to impossible situations, such as building and then improving upon a metal chest plate to keep his heart from stopping (that is totally how medical science works) -- and an equally sharp mouth. Even though he's gotten better at tempering his sarcasm and knee-jerk reactions to others, Tony is still more playful and reckless than most of the other Avengers. He blurts out his thoughts at inappropriate times, still acts smug, still cracks sarcastic jokes in the face of danger, and gets wrapped up in his own life so much that he tends to screw up those of others as a result. He's always been impossibly stubborn when he believed he was right and snapped back at people for passive-aggressive or accusatory comments, and that still hasn't changed. Even when the stakes are high, Tony Stark can't help but get his own word in.
I do what I think is best. What I think is right. I make no apologies for that. But I do make a promise: that I'll face the consequences. I make the decision and I pay the price.
Despite a lot of his bad impulses, Tony does have his good traits. He asks for help; defers to others knowing he doesn't always have the answers. He's willing to set aside his pride and is self-aware enough to figure out (eventually) when his pride is in the way. Tony is a hero, and he takes the idea of being a hero seriously. He wants to protect those around him, friends and strangers alike, and has a strong desire to do good in spite of his own shortcomings. He's learned to recognize his weaknesses even when he can't completely control them, and he always tries to maintain the good and improve upon the bad. After all, he's a builder of the future and that is what progress is about.
Abilities, Magic and Supernatural Skills/Afflictions:
Tony is considered a meta-human with a few enhanced abilities that exceed normal human skills, but all of these are limited.
intelligence - Tony is literally a genius. His intelligence makes him one of the smartest men in the world, earning multiple doctorates from MIT at the age of seventeen and continuing from there. As an adult, he's noted as an engineering master, able to build things other people consider in the realm of science fiction. He has skill in a variety of areas, lauded as an expert in business as well as technical and mechanical engineering, most notably building a powered suit of armor that can fly and fire weapons. He can reverse-engineer technology that is more advanced than his own and build complex machinery from very basic materials.
Tony has also built billion-dollar companies from the ground up. He's charismatic enough to win over others and rational enough to command results, making him a decent enough leader in immediate situations.
strategy - The other thing Tony has is tactical intuition. Because of his ability to analyze his situations and work around limits, he can come up with unexpected strategies to overcome obstacles and threats. He's good at coming up with plans, which tends to be his strong suit in any conflict. He's also a self-proclaimed futurist, able to think and respond to conditions several steps in advance, at times giving him insights to what will happen years ahead of when it does. He enjoys both chess and soccer, indicating that he sees the potential in things and uses that potential to shape the outcomes that he wants.
physical ability - Tony is a decent fighter, having been trained by several skilled combatants, the top of the list being Captain America, Black Panther, and Black Widow. He can take on several trained soldiers at once and he's fairly tenacious, even if he is lacking finesse. He's not the best fighter, but he can hold his own to some capacity.
Dragon & Magical Element
Elemental Alignment:
- Wind - Wind is fitting for a few reasons. Tony tends toward flying in canon and has a love of it. Thematically, it is linked to inspiration and intellect, which he is also known for, and it is tied to physics, which means at lot to him since he's a mechanical engineer.
Light - Tony works a lot with energy and light, developing stealth technology, lasers, concentrated beams, using solar energy, and energy-based force fields. And on an ironic note, he has a healing ability and tends to be more of a passive person by nature, so a connection to unicorns would be funny.
Fire - Again, Tony uses fire in canon. He creates weapons, designing explosives and manipulating metal (he is a metalworker), so fire would suit what he is used to dealing with. Also kind of ironically, his skills can be used to both help or harm and has given him a bad reputation in some cases, just like the element can be seen as both helpful or dangerous.
Dragon:
Tony's dragon is a female whose adult size will be large, reaching roughly 8-9 meters long, but stand roughly 2.5-3 meters high off of the ground. Having a legless, serpentine body, her only limbs are a pair of feathered wings on the upper half of the length. She can fly, assisted by an ability to flatten parts of her body to create a hood behind her head and two sets of "fins" on the lower part of her body to give her more lift. In general appearance, the dragon resembles a giant snake with feathered "ears" on her head. Her entire body is covered in scales that are mostly cream-colored, with a pale red strip down the center of her back and darker red and yellow markings on her face. While her belly scales are flat, the scales on the rest of her body are pointed and curl up slightly. Her head has a muzzle somewhat equine in shape, with rows of sharp teeth meant for tearing. Her eyes are pale blue and avian rather than snake-like. While on the ground, she can raise her scales to show off the points, giving her a spiked appearance that is meant as a bluff against threats, particularly before she reaches her full size. Her wings are primarily red, with yellow and light blue at the edges. The end of her tail has flight feathers creating a leaf-like tuft in the same pattern as her wings. She also has several harder, convex blue scales on her body resembling stones which are part of her pattern: one large scale on the top of her head and six more smaller scales going down either side of the front third of her body. These act as magic receptors that glow when the dragon attempts to use magic. Like the ability to puff out her scales, this reaction is used for display purposes and otherwise useless.
Because of her body type and lighter frame, even at full size, Tony's dragon is not able to carry a rider. At best she can tow a human while swimming in the water where weight won't be a problem. She's a strict carnivore and has a preference for eggs. As a hatchling, she primarily eats insects and small prey, then eventually she will hunt for whatever is small enough for her to catch and consume.
The dragon's egg is slightly larger than a softball and a dull sandy color, resembling a large rock. It has the appearance of a rough texture that blends in with the surrounding rock of the mountains and has more of a snake egg shape.
Personality traits inherited from Character Bond:
Writing Samples
First Sample:
April Test Drive threads
October Test Drive threads
Second Sample:
"You're going crazy, Stark." Tony huffed out the words, straining to hold his grip on the rock face he was pressed again. "You're hallucinating again." He shouldn't be wasting his breath talking to himself, but there was no one around to tell him that. Just the- the voice? The feeling that had brought him to the cavern, climbing up jagged rocks the old-fashioned way.
He'd woken up from a vision. It was sad how used to that he was getting these days, but, as the psychiatrists said, that was just his brain adjusting to the change. Except this time Tony had been greeted by a fantasy world. He could have been a character from a video game. You're world has ended. You are now chosen to go on a quest and bring it back. Or that's what he was interpreting it as, anyway. The ominous nightmare hadn't been very specific on the details. All Tony really knew was that this wasn't his office anymore, and that whatever world he was in wasn't very tech-friendly.
And that he had to go. To find something.
Apparently "something" was an egg. He assumed that was what they were. The cavern at the center of the city he found himself in was full of them. Large and small, in every shape and color imaginable. Some were embedded in the stone floor while others were clustered together in nests, each surrounded by glowing writing in a language that he didn't recognize. Magic. Even Tony couldn't deny that the scene was beautiful.
But his journey wasn't done yet. The pull that called to him was drawing him to a high ledge sticking out of the wall, a good twenty feet off the ground. So there he was, free-climbing his way to whatever wanted him, quite possibly to his end. He dragged himself up onto the ledge, groaning and cursing the lack of technology for the fourth time since he'd begun his climb, lying prone against the top as he caught his breath. The tapping noise to his side almost went unnoticed, but the warm light was too familiar to ignore. Blue and bright despite the source being small, Tony opened his eyes to the pulsing glow as a pointed snout poked through the shell of a lone egg nearby. The light was coming from there, like a slow heartbeat.
"Definitely going crazy." The awe crept in without his notice. The light faded as Tony scooted forward on the stone to the egg, staring as the dragon began pushing its way through the shell. She made a noise, making Tony wonder briefly how he knew the dragon was a she since it looked a lot like a snake. As he debated that question, the dragon wound its way toward him, sliding free of the egg and slithering up to examine his hand. It took him a minute to decide how to react to the cool scales brushing his fingers.
He decided that he couldn't take the doubt. Whatever was happening, he had to know for certain. "I don't believe in you," he told it. He reached for the dragon, picking it up by the middle of its body and holding it up above him, trying to catch the light from the cavern entrance. The dragon squawked in protest, flapping two small, feathered wings as she was hoisted up. Small points on her body glowed with the blue light again and she brought her head down, sinking sharp teeth into Tony's arm. He flinched and released her, and as the dragon darted back to the ground, she curled up with her body under her and her head raised for a second strike. The two stayed frozen, eyeing each other for a tense moment before Tony broke the stalemate.
"Okay, you're right. I deserved that." He sighed as the dragon seemed to relax and, cautiously, settle in front of him. "Well, I guess this means you're real and I'm not crazy," he told her. "What do we do now? We have to get back down." The feathered serpent, apparently sensing his resignation, slithered closer and made her way to his lap. Tony recognized the warm feeling in the back of his mind again--the one that had pulled him there. Like a call from an old friend. He smiled, finding her presence strangely comforting. "Yeah, you rest. I'll do all the work."